Taiwan's United Renewable Energy Co., Ltd. (URN) announced on July 8th the layoff of up to 450 of its employees, which is approximately 15% of its total workforce. The layoff comes as the company seeks to scale down its operations to survive the slump of the PV power market.

The company was originally formed via the merger of Neo Solar Power Corp., Gintech Energy Corp. and Solartech Energy Corp. last October. Taiwan’s Executive Yuan, which provided a part of the funding for the company, originally believed that the merger would solve the predicaments of Taiwan's PV power industry due to the synergy effect.

In addition to making changes to its workforce, the company will also seek to halve its total manufacturing capacity, which is currently at around 100 MW, in the long run. The Taiwanese company will also take steps to shift towards branded modules and integrated terminal PV power systems, and will transfer some of its capacity to the productions of high-performance PV cells. In the future, URN will retain only the plant in Southern Taiwan Science Park and a part of the Chunan plant, while leasing out the Linkou plant and the plant in Hsinchu Science Park.

Hung Chuan-hsien, the chairman of URN, noted that the layoff underscores the company's resolve for the transformation of its operations, which is scheduled for completion by the end of the year.